


I did not know a moment's peace; for I did not know myself

by BananaStrings



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Choices, Conflict, Espionage, Hydra (Marvel), Imprisonment, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26654485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananaStrings/pseuds/BananaStrings
Summary: Brock gets to finish his speech.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Brock Rumlow
Kudos: 18





	I did not know a moment's peace; for I did not know myself

Steve had stepped out of Howard's capsule and into a vehicle. His changed body hadn’t felt like a part of him, at least no more than his motorcycle had when he’d ridden it; a tool, a suit, a costume. There was this lightness to it, this terrible invincibility, this confounding idea that if he wanted to, he could take it off again, unzip it and step out and be only himself again.

But, he hadn’t wanted to. He was used to a singular lack of affection. Small enough to be bullied, sick enough to be pitied, no one had put their hands on him because they’d wanted to. When he’d grown this new skin, he watched people touch it, but they never quite touched him. That didn’t seem odd to him, only familiar.

It wasn’t until he’d awoken so truly out of place, that the dissonance seemed hard to bear. There were so many people in this new world with bodies that looked like his, thick and lean and strong. They carried themselves like him too, like their muscles were armor and glamour and show.

But, they weren’t like him. If they stopped lifting or working or bulking, they would shrink or soften. They would step out of that skin and into another. He couldn’t. It occurred to him that he may want to own this new body as his home.

He found his role model in S.T.R.I.K.E. Commander Rumlow, in partnering with him, in leading with him. Rumlow lifted and worked and bulked and kept that skin of strength and power. He lived in it. No matter how he’d come by it or maintained it, he owned his body. He was agile and graceful and commanding, from head to toe, and Steve was, for lack of a better word, attracted.

Yes, he admired. Yes, he wanted to learn. But, it was the attraction that motivated him, the idea that he might eventually be able to feel it, when someone touched him. The idea that it might even feel good, if it was someone like Rumlow who did it, someone he chose.

Natasha seemed to read him easily, but she did all she could to redirect that attraction. Steve didn’t know why. Maybe she just wanted him to know he had options, so that his choice was in fact a choice and not just an impulse.

Rumlow for his part was simply patient. He watched, he waited, he wanted. Steve knew that much. There was no subtlety in Rumlow’s appreciation of him. His voice would deepen, when they were alone together, reminding him of Bucky around a pretty girl. Brock adopted that same almost gallant attitude that Bucky would get around the ones he really liked.

Rogers found he didn’t mind being courted. He found his hands becoming his own, as Brock gave him sharp knives to cut with, while he taught him a few new recipes in his kitchen. He found his cheek becoming his own, leaning on the back of the couch, watching a new snow fall, while Rumlow tried to explain the jokes in a current comedy. He found his back becoming his own, as muscles, he didn’t even know could unflex, finally relaxed with Brock lying beside him on the bed, to sleep as they’d agreed.

He found his movement becoming his own, jogging in D.C., his whole body uniting from his legs to his lungs. He didn’t do it to stay strong. He did it to feel like himself. He met Sam that way, as himself, and he felt validated that Sam liked him that way. Sam, however, asked him to look for more than just the physical, but the invisible that made him himself; the emotional, the principled, the mysterious.

Steve decided to embrace the mystery. He asked Brock if he was interested in sexual affection. Rumlow laughed, which Rogers was glad of. It was a nice laugh, and it softened the awkwardness.

"Yeah," Brock told him, "you read that right."

Steve could feel the warmth of Brock’s regard without even a touch, and he felt encouraged that there may well be pleasure somewhere in the wilds.

Of course, the wilds of this world were not only pleasure. There were serpents and sea monsters and mythical creatures he discovered, all real and all mighty, and when Hydra cracked S.H.I.E.L.D., everyone was exposed. Steve watched him heal in a subbasement of a Stark-owned facility. The twisted and textured scars rose to replace the burned skin, and despite himself all he felt was kinship. This new body Brock would need to learn to own now.

"I heard from Sam that you apparently have a lot you want to say."

Brock’s chin rose slightly from a seeming meditative state, after being brought into the observation room. He was sitting slumped forward in his chair, chains holding him like safety straps in a car, more embrace than he’d had in weeks, while impersonal medics had made sure he was bearing up under the pain. Steve was not even in the same room as him, standing across a one-way mirror, with a speaker sending his voice in.

Brock took a deep breath. Steve could hear it, and it was a strange sort of comfort just to hear him breathe. His lungs were mending and exceeding all expectations. He was, for all intents and purposes, well. Obviously there had been some alteration to him physically, before the accident, that allowed for this healing of wounds that would have killed an unaugmented man. Steve’s sympathy rose again, and Brock spoke to him like this was conversation and not interrogation.

"Hydra killed Hitler. They shared no common goals. The rise of Hydra heralded in the most peaceful era of human history. Everything got better. That wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. That wasn’t evolution. That was Hydra working hard every chance we got to make this world a safe place for human beings to live in. Because, it’s not that way without work.

"This is a dangerous world. Humans are dangerous animals. We had to turn that danger to good use, not to fight against it but with it. To make people a self-policing species, we had to show them how truly dangerous they really were. Make it a spectacle, a show, a story that they wouldn’t forget—couldn’t forget.

"The helicarriers were never going up. You must know that. It was the spectacle, the fireball, the big glorious destruction that we wanted. So, that people would cheer the loss of outside policing. So, that looking up toward the sky for justice would not become normalized. Because, it could be, so easily. Justice from on high, one of humanity’s oldest mistakes. Hydra won't let us forget, we are here on this ground, together.

"Power through pain is not some kind of barbarism. It's not cruelty. It's the reminder that we are fallible, vulnerable, all of us. We don't play hero. We don't barrel through like some costumed jackass. We just do the job, because it's the right thing to do."

"Then Captain America was supposed to go down in your blaze of ignominy too?"

Brock rubbed at his eyes, a gesture so unlike him, made more odd by the ringing of metal links in the chain. Finally he looked up at the reflective glass.

"If you'd known I was Hydra, would you have killed _me_?"

Steve blinked his gaze down, even knowing he was unseen. Sam hadn’t killed Brock, when he’d had the chance. Sam had known how much Steve cared about him, and Brock had known how much Steve cared about Sam, and both men had survived. Bucky, God, it hurt just to think about it. Steve turned his back to Brock now.

Steve had dropped himself into that lake to give Bucky a moment’s breath, a chance to decide. Bucky had needed a little distance sometimes; he had always been like that, yet somehow turning up when Steve needed him most. The water hadn’t been a danger to Steve; he could have swam easily to the shore, but Bucky had done what Bucky had used to do and come back to give him a hand up. Whatever Hydra had done to him, Bucky had survived. Brock was implying that he’d chosen too, chosen not to kill Captain America or Falcon despite Hydra's clear intent to do so.

"I don’t know," Steve admitted, hating himself for it. "What you did to Bucky…"

"I didn’t do much. I'd worked with him once, before that week. I liked him. I guess I know why now. ‘Cause he was your brother."

"Is…is my brother," he corrected, turning back around.

Steve could see a muscle in Brock’s jaw clench. The contrast glared of how easily Bucky was forgiven with how Brock now sat, chained and isolated. Consent was inviolate to Steve. Brock had given his. Steve had given his. Bucky had not. To hold Brock accountable for something more than himself, however, felt a stretch of justice to snapping. The burns, the judgment, all felt so archaic and meaningless today.

He could understand Brock’s thinking. These little flags flown over little countries, these petty games played to see who was best. Hydra proclaimed instead that we were all one body, and Brock had decided that Steve was more important than any stars and stripes draped over him. It was Steve himself who struggled with the differentiation.

Sam had tried to help him, to warn him perhaps. While Brock had chosen to serve Hydra with a clear head, Steve had stumbled forward with eyes on the past, on memories of Peggy and how he’d idolized her; her inner strength, her confidence, her command. She was his only model for a way to be different in this world, to lead when every voice told him to follow.

So, Steve had done what Captain America knew to do and propelled himself toward the threat in an attempt to quell it. Which was apparently what all of Hydra had been counting on him to do. He could sympathize with Bruce a lot more now; his own alter ego being a lot more smash-minded than he’d realized. It was embarrassing to know himself as so simple.

Thankfully, there were aspects of Brock just as simple. He knew what Brock wanted from him. It was the same thing he wanted from everyone. Make a choice. They were not so different in that way.

He'd had practice now at pulling the disparate pieces of himself together under one skin. Steve was not the costume anymore. He entered the room Rumlow was held in. He knew this was all being monitored for everyone's safety, but he had a choice to make.

Rogers knelt down in front of the chair Rumlow was locked to. Brock had enough play in his chains to let him reach forward, to place his palms on Steve’s cheeks, skin to skin. He was not sure who was forgiving who, but it felt good—freeing. Separate heads, one body. He smiled, and Brock smiled back.


End file.
